Last year my friend, who introduced me to glass and handed down to me many of my glass arsenal, gave me a Sage RPL 590-4 9' 5wt. I hadn't fished with it or casted it until today. I was going through my gear and I decided to see how the thing feels. I threw a reel on and made a few casts. I gotta say, I'm actually impressed. I could feel the rod load, and it had a nice action to it. Not nearly as fast as I expected, given the recent Sage models that I've casted. I could see actually using this rod on some of the bigger waters.

Sasquatch, I still have an old Sage 590-4 SP that still casts well. I am going to dig it out again this season. I think the emphasis on fast rods is killing castibilty. I find myself going back to glass & cane. But there are some old graphite rods that still have it - Sage SP, RPL & LL, the original Scott G series. I am curious about the new Sage Circa series. The old Winston IM6 rods were great also.

But I did get rid of my old Orvis HLS rods, a 590-4 and a 690-4. Now they felt like broom handles.

I've never cast an RPL. I can say Sage makes a multitude of actions in their rods.

Flydoggie, the Circa is a nice rod. It's definitely worth a look if you like a slow action.

Posted on: 2014/3/9 17:17

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"I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution." John Gierach

TB, "just right" is about right. It feels very nice. I shouldn't be surprised. As I said, the guy who gave it to me also gave me tons of glass. He really likes the feel of glass, so for him to have a really fast rod in his arsenal would be odd.

The one thing is, he overlined it with 6wt to slow it down even more. I casted it w/ 6wt, but it felt a little heavy to me. 5wt really was the sweet spot.

He also gave me a rod he built on first generation graphite, which felt very much like glass.

A well made fast action graphite rod is an excellent fishing tool that has a lot of feel. It is not stiff and does not need to be over lined.

Sasquatch, without knowing your glass rods, I am willing to bet a few are fast action rods. A fast action grass or glass rod would be considered slow by many fishermen today. For comparison a fast action grass or glass rod is probably similar in action to a medium action graphite rod made by an old school traditional builder such as Thomas and Thomas, C.F. Burkheimer, R.W. Winston, House of Hardy, or Tom Morgan Rodsmith, to name a few.

Right. Fast in the glass world is still slow to most graphite users. I can tell a difference though. Some rods are certainly faster than others. I've used some glass that were actually very stiff and didn't have the feeling I liked (the new Cabelas glass rod, for example-the red blank, not the green one).

This was a good reminder for me, though. It's not always the material that makes the rods feel right.

This was a good reminder for me, though. It's not always the material that makes the rods feel right.

Bingo.

If I'm fishin' for trout, I much prefer bamboo. I just prefer the way cane rods cast and feel while fishing. But, I have been casting some graphite rods lately, introducing the girlfriend to the sport, working on my CI cert....so I've been playing with the tupperware recently.

Some of it casts really, really nice, some of it feels like crap off the rack and some of it is humbling as I learn how to cast the new fast action rods. I have a Scott G series that I bought new in the mid 90's, and it's now accompanied by the girlfriend's Allen 7'6"/3-4wt and an Echo solo 9'/5wt. Both feel very similar to the old reliable Scott, but nothing like the St Croix Imperial 9'/6wt that's leaning against them. That rod is a mess in my hands when strung up with a Windcutter 6WF, I had no feel for it the first time I cast it, gonna be interesting figuring that one out. (And no, please don't advise me to overline it with a 7blahblahblah, it's labeled a 6, and I'm gonna figure out how to cast a 6 with it.)

So, yeah, horses for courses, we're all pretty dang lucky to have so, so many options right now.

There is more to "speed" of a rod than fast or slow, you like a rod that flexes deeper and some graphite does that. Graphite has it's time and place, 9 feet of glass or bamboo gets a bit tiresome after several hours.

Unless you're driving an AMC Pacer with 8 track player to the crick, time to step it up Andy. Congrats on discovering 1991 with that rod. That's just scratching the surface. There's a ton of nice / modern rods out there.